Car 54, Where Are You?

The law's most serious slowdown is not always delay in the courts-- the months or years it can take a case to come to trial. Too often the problem is delay in the law's enforcement--the interminable minutes it can take to reach the police. In an age of computers and digit dialing, it may be easier to phone "Hiya" to a pal in Addis Ababa than to call "Help" to a cop a few blocks away.

The citizen who has just been mugged on Staten Island in New York City is likely to get a second unpleasant surprise. If he still has a dime and dials the officially listed police number, ST (for Saint George) 7-1200, he will get a business firm in Manhattan. The cops' correct number happens to be SA (for Saint George) 7-1200, but someone goofed when it came to listing it in the police roster. Manhattanites are told to call SPring 7-3100, which is hard enough to remember and even harder to dial in the dark. When help finally does arrive, apologetic cops often advise, "Next time, call CAnal 7-2000," which is not the emergency number but the more prosaic listing for "all other business."

Two-Hour Delay. Typifying the U.S. problem of slow police service, New York City has five boroughs with five separate police numbers that seem to endlessly confuse callers. The police department is now struggling to devise a system whereby a single "hot line" central number would automatically summon the cops in the caller's own borough--though even this would not eliminate delays caused by police operators who ask interminable questions before sending aid.

Even so, New York is better off than many other cities. Houston's emergency calls go through an all-service city switchboard, and police may be delayed by as much as two hours. In Los Angeles County's 75 incorporated cities, 27 of them policed by the county sheriff and 48 by local forces, the right number to call is often a mystery to the householder with a prowler hacking at his back door. Best advice: dial the operator and pray that she is not already swamped with other calls.

Two-Minute Rescue. Some cities are making progress. Chicago police have their own switchboard (POlice 5-1313) and a communications center where three-man teams are responsible for each of the city's eight zones. Calls automatically go to the right team, seated before illuminated zone maps that pinpoint the position of all radio cars. Two men receive and record the details on IBM cards; the third simultaneously assigns a car. The whole process takes about 15 seconds.

Hot-line numbers are on the increase --for example, Boston's DE 8-1212, Cleveland's MA 1-1234, St. Louis' CE 1-1212; in some cases they bring police cars screeching to the scene in as little as two minutes. Things would be even simpler if U.S. police had a nationwide number like West Germany's 110 or Britain's 999, which can be dialed unerringly in the dark.

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